Coping with Athletic Injuries

"Have you thought about the possibility that maybe you are depressed?"  As those words exited the mouth of the Nurse Practitioner at the Urgent Treatment Center, a few tears streamed down my cheek.  I went in to the UTC expecting there to be a physical reason for why I had become abnormally tired and unmotivated the previous couple months.  Blood tests, xrays, and MRI's all came out fine, and when the Nurse Practitioner asked me that question, I knew immediately she was on to something.  It was my Junior year of collegiate swimming, and  I had pulled my groin during a swim meet a few months prior.  My swim season more-or-less came to a halt after that injury.   Until that point, I was lucky enough that (with hard work) I was able see steady improvements in my times throughout my entire swimming career.  The groin injury happened while I was swimming my leg (breastroke) of the 400 yard medley relay.  After pushing off the wall to swim the second half of my 100 yard leg, I did my regular underwater pull and kick, but this kick was anything but regular. I heard and felt a 'snap' in my groin, and when I tried to kick again, it hurt and had absolutely no power behind it.  I finished my leg of the relay by pulling as hard as I could, and making the breastroke kick motion very gently.  I climbed out of the pool, and hobbled straight over to the athletic trainer. The diagnosis of muscle pull, and recommendation to not swim breastroke until the groin completely healed stung worse than the injury itself.   My dream of breaking the school record I was so close to was merely just a dream now.  My goal of reaching the podium for the 100 yard breastroke at the Conference meet was stripped.  Even my identity was uncertain now. For about as long as I could remember, when someone asked me to tell them something about myself, the first words out of my mouth were "I'm a swimmer."  I wasn't able to practice at all for a few weeks, and when I was finally allowed back in the pool, I could only swim freestyle (my worst and least favorite stroke).  I didn't feel like a swimmer anymore, and in my mind if I was not a swimmer, I was nothing.  I never would have imagined that a groin pull could ultimately lead to a depressive episode.

I share this personal story because I want it to be known that it is completely normal to feel depressed, angry, or hopeless as a result of an athletic injury.  Luckily I have avoided any major athletic injury since the groin pull, but I have had my share of minor  athletic injury-related setbacks since becoming a runner 4 years ago.  An athletic injury is unfair.  You've worked hard to be healthy, and towards the goals you have laid out for yourself.  The last thing you deserve is for your progress to be halted.  It is completely normal to throw a pity party for yourself when you have an injury that keeps you from doing what you love, but sitting around, focusing on the negative is not going to heal your injury.  If you can manage to deal with your injury gracefully, you will come out of it a more focused, flexible, and resilient athlete.

Learn about what you are dealing with:  With the free time you now have on your hands, learn about the causes, treatment, and prevention of your injury.  Educating yourself about your injury has several benefits.  Knowing exactly what you are dealing with will lessen your sense of fear and anxiety about the injury, and will make you feel more in control of your recovery process.  Knowing how to properly treat the injury will get you back to your sport sooner. Knowing the causes and how to prevent the injury will greatly decrease your chances of experiencing that same injury in the future.

Take ownership:  Accept the fact that you have an injury, and you are the only one who can fully determine the outcome.  Dwelling on the past, conjuring up a list of factors to blame for your injury, and wishing for the injury to magically heal itself as quickly as it came about won't heal you (trust me, I've tried!)  Doing everything in your power (physical therapy, strength training, *rest, etc.) to heal the injury and prevent it from happening again is a much more efficient method.

*rest: I completely understand how frustrating it is for an athlete to be forced to rest.  No athlete wants to lose all the hard work they put in to reaching the level of fitness they have obtained.  Your mind is in constant battle with what you know you need to do to heal (rest) and what you know you need to do to reach your goals of improving (keep training).  Unfortunately, if you return to activity that irritates your injury too soon, you are only prolonging the recovery process or setting yourself up for another, potentially more serious, injury.  Fighting the urge to get back out there to participate in your choice activity sooner than you should is one of the most difficult facets of athletic injury to deal with.  Fortunately, most athletic injuries do not keep you from participating in all forms of exercise, so if you are willing (and you really should be!) to try a new form of exercise, now is the time! 


Maintain your fitness in other ways:  A realization that I needed to cut back on my running and pick up cross training in order to keep my running injuries at bay led to my discovery of triathlon (which is now my favorite sport)!  Most athletic injuries will not keep an athlete from every single form of exercise.  With many running injuries, an athlete can still cycle, swim, water jog, do Pilates or yoga, etc.  Many athletes do not realize that if they maintain cardio fitness while they are unable to participate in their sport of choice, they will remain in great shape for when they are healed and able to return to their choice activity.  In fact, an athlete is likely to find that the cross training they did while injured made them a stronger, more well-rounded athlete.  You may build muscles during cross training that compliment the muscles you use doing your choice activity.

Keep a positive attitude:   A negative attitude can negate all the good things you are doing. If you are resting like you are supposed to, keeping up with all your treatment sessions, and doing everything your doctor has told you, but your attitude remains negative, it may take longer for you to heal, and it will take a toll on your psyche.  Channel your negative energy into remaining focused on your treatment regimen.  When you start having negative thoughts, take some time to relax, close your eyes, and imagine (or visualise)  yourself doing your sport injury free.  Trust and know that in time, you will be participating in your sport again.

Set rehab goals: Goals are what keep you motivated to train and improve in your sport, right?  If you've been setting and making goals for quite some time, you know how to set a realistic goal! Translate that set of skills into your rehab process.  Shift the focus of your goals from performance to recovery and write them down.  This will keep you motivated to recover.  You will be able to see and check off small improvements in the rehab of your injury.   

Maintain friendships:  For many athletes, their best friends are those they train with.  You are use to seeing your training buddies several days a week, and the absence of them in your life could be another reason for your sadness.  If you play a team sport, keep going to the practices and stretch and socialize with the team before and after practice.  During practice, you can help the couch and provide support for your teammates.  If you do an individual sport, make plans with your training buddies to meet for coffee or dinner to catch up.  Most likely, your training buddies have their own experiences with injury to share with you,  and they can provide an ear (if you need to vent your frustrations), and encouragement through your rehab process.


Look Forward: Think about how insanely happy you will be once you get the clear to participate in your sport again.  Years of participating non-stop in a single sport can cause burnout for athletes, so that time off from your sport may have bought you several months or years worth of 'burnout protection' because it made you realize how much you love your sport, and appreciate that (for the most part) your body lets you do what you love.

I'll end this post by suggesting you think about athletic injuries in a way that I bet you never have before. Over the past few years, I have come to consciously appreciate being injury free.  I am thankful for each and every injury-free run, bike, and swim workout that I have.  I realize that I have been given the gift of an able body. Not everyone on this planet has been given the gift to walk, run, swim, cycle, etc. so I consider myself lucky to be able to physically do such things.  In the grand scheme of things, an athletic injury is in fact not the end of the world.  Instead of focusing on how your body failed you, be thankful that your body let you participate in the activity that injured you.  Take the opportunity to grow as a person by learning how to cope gracefully with obstacles.